Lord Mayor puts landowners on notice over graffiti

Newly appointed “hands on” Lord Mayor Nicholas Reece has wasted no time in zeroing in on graffiti in the city calling on private and government entities to pull their weight.

The City of Melbourne has identified more than 98,000 square metres of graffiti on major assets it doesn’t own or manage – including graffiti located higher than three metres and on private and government-owned properties.

The council says it will work with major infrastructure and asset owners to remove graffiti and improve city amenity and cleanliness but added that it has limited capacity over sites it doesn’t have oversight of.

The Lord Mayor addressed the issue in July at Batman Park, where infrastructure owned by VicTrack along the Flinders St extension has long been riddled with graffiti. Other key third-party sites the council has identified included Banana Alley Vaults (VicTrack), Charles Grimes Bridge (VicRoads) and the building façade at 22 Flemington Rd (Royal Melbourne Hospital / state government).

“Council has never been doing more to keep the city clean and now we need everyone to do their part,” Cr Reece said.

We know graffiti removal can be costly and difficult – that’s why we're reaching out to landowners to help scrub this scourge from Melbourne's iconic city landscape.

“We’re ramping up efforts to show taggers their poor behaviour will not be tolerated.”

“Under this plan, we will support owners of major assets to remove almost 10,000 square metres of graffiti off buildings and infrastructure in public spaces.”

“Melbourne is the best place to live, work and visit, with world-renowned culture and legal street art – graffiti is an unsightly blight and has no place in our beautiful city.”

According to the City of Melbourne, it had removed 1650 tonnes of litter and dumped rubbish, cleaned more than 25,000sqm of graffiti, actioned 17,500 customer service requests and pressure washed more than 32,000sqm of pavements and street furniture in the past three months.

During the past year, it has also removed more than 112,000sqm of graffiti – the equivalent to five MCGs – and had doubled its investment in cleaning services over the past four years.